THINK ABOUT GROW-OPS NEXT TIME YOU USE POT

Do you ever wonder about the lack of surprise or outrage at the
discovery of a massive pot-growing operation in a North York highrise
last month? There have been several such marijuana grow-ops
discovered in North York in recent years. They are all over the GTA.

Of course there is shock and even grave concern among those who find
they've been living beside such operations. These places are fire
traps from wiring rigged to avoid detection of grow lamps' heavy
electrical use, a sure sign to authorities of a possible grow-op.

They are potential health hazards from mould. And, being illegal,
there's the possibility that they are being guarded or targeted by
people with guns, or who are involved in other types of crime.

There was appropriate concern expressed by the local councillor,
Giorgio Mammoliti (Ward 7, York West), and by the provincial
Opposition leader, John Tory, about the effect this grow-op has on
other people living in the building. (Police seized 6,000 marijuana
plants valued at more than $6 million at the building at 2600
Sheppard Ave. W. Three men, including the building's superintendent,
face charges.)

Tory called for a protocol to help the other occupants of the
building, to have health, building and fire inspectors on the scene
within 24 hours. There's also money in the province's crime victims
compensation fund that could be accessed, Tory pointed out.

Not many others seem concerned.

One reason for the apparent lack of concern may be the large number
of Canadians who smoke pot, using it as a recreational drug not
unlike alcohol. In 2004, the Canadian Addiction Survey, the first
major study of drug and alcohol use in Canada in a decade, reported
that 14 per cent of Canadians said they had used cannabis in the past
year, up from 7.4 per cent in 1994. If there are 30 million people in
Canada, that's four million of us using marijuana. If the numbers are
still rising as they did between 1994 and 2004, those numbers have
only grown by 2006, with 2007 just around the corner.

In a city of 2.5 million people like Toronto, that's more than
300,000 people using marijuana. Take in the suburbs and about five
million of us, there are 600,000 or more people using marijuana each
year in the GTA.

That's a lot of people with a fairly casual concern for the law, and
what effect use of this illegal drug is having by fostering an
explosion of grow-ops across the city.

In fact some of you may be reading this editorial right now.

To you we would say that, yes, we could fully legalize marijuana. And
perhaps if we had politicians or a population with enough courage to
push for this, we would.

But until that day, perhaps you should consider what your pot smoking
does to others when people are willing to break the law to grow it
for you. It's not a pretty picture.